"Some one in the hall," he said to himself, "and he has lighted the gas."
Curiously he gazed at the illuminated square upon the grass below; the sash and even the swinging cord of the blind were sharply outlined. But, as he looked, a figure partially filled in the square—the figure of a woman, small, delicate and exceedingly graceful, her back was, apparently, turned to the window, and she was waving one hand in a beckoning motion as though to some one further along the hall. Then a second figure appeared, and the two silhouetted heads bent together in earnest conference.
"So!" said Ashton-Kirk, softly. "I understood that with Drevenoff gone to the city I was the only man in the house. But I see now that there was a mistake somewhere."
[CHAPTER XVIII]
Gone!
The words of old Nanon, spoken only a few hours before, came back to Ashton-Kirk.
"It will be so much safer to have a man about the place, even though a sick one," she had said. "Now that Drevenoff is gone for the night, we should have been alone."